2020 City of Shakopee Budget

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4. The City will avoid postponing expenditures and provide for the adequate maintenance, replacement and improvement of the City’s physical assets in order to protect the capital investment and minimize future maintenance and replacement costs. 5. To protect against unforeseen events, the City will budget a contingency and maintain fund balances according to the City’s policies. 6. The City will apportion its administrative and general government costs to all its funds as appropriate and practical. 7. The City staff will monitor revenues and expenditures to adhere to their budgeted amounts. Monthly reports comparing budget with revenues and expenditures will be prepared. Line items within a division may be over spent as long as the total division budget is not over spent. 8. Appropriations will be included in the operating budgets to keep internal service fund resources at an appropriate level. 9. Appropriations lapse at year end. FUND BALANCE/NET POSITION POLICY Fund balance is the difference between the assets and liabilities in a governmental fund. A governmental fund generally involves tax support and the focus of accounting is the flow or control of money. The General, Special Revenue, Debt Service and Capital Projects funds are governmental funds. Net Position is similar to fund balance but applies to enterprise and internal services fund and has a longer term focus including fixed assets, accumulated depreciation and long term debt. This Fund Balance Policy applies to unrestricted fund balances comprised of committed, assigned, unassigned amounts. The City Council can assign fund balance by expressing its intent or the Finance Director is hereby authorized to assign fund balance. When both restricted and unrestricted resources are available for use, it is the City’s policy to first use restricted resources, and then use unrestricted resources as they are needed. When unrestricted resources are available for use, it is the City’s policy to use resources in the following order: (1) committed, (2) assigned, and (3) unassigned. General Fund :  The General Fund may have a portion of its fund balance classified as non-spendable if there are long term receivables, inventories, or prepaid items on the balance sheet.  The General Fund is the only fund that can have any unassigned positive fund balance. The working capital balance of the general fund will fall into the unassigned fund balance classification.  The target level of unassigned fund balance as recommended by the Office of the Minnesota State Auditor is 35 to 50% of ensuing year’s expenditure budget. This amount of unassigned fund balance will provide adequate funds until the next property tax revenue collection cycle for cash flow, unexpected decline in revenue such as state aid unallotment and unforeseen expenditures such as natural disasters.